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Saturday, September 08, 2018

Bad TV presentation of law (a weekly series?)

This is my weekly post on how some TV show messed up something law-related.This week: Ozark.

A character is arrested after getting into a car accident while under the influence of drugs She is arrested and charged with DUI, possession, and reckless endangerment. An officer trying to get the character to become a CI tells her that she is subject the three-strikes law because she was charged with three crimes and will go to jail for life.

That is not how three-strikes laws works. If it were, every defendant would be subject to a life sentence, because a prosecutor can always find three criminal statutes violated in one conduct, transaction, or occurrence.

It was throwaway, but it reflected uninformed, lazy writing. Of course, I thought the entire character arc was lazy, having out-of-character behavior to serve the needs of the plot. Getting a bit of law wrong in service of a stupid character development is the lesser-included offense.